FirstNationalBastard:Couldn't they have just called this "Artists you've never heard of badly draw the Justice League and Avengers in period costumes or transformers"?

What next, Downton Abbey Justice League?

A lot of those were parodies of specific art styles, actually, and not necessarily bad ones. I thought the Astro boy/Tintin one was pretty spot-on, for instance. And the "medieval" ones making fun of the standard art style of certain (incredibly pretentious) comics got a laugh, too.

Albeit a couple of them were deviantart crap that the author of TFA either didn't recognize as half-assed fetish spank-work (the gender-swapping, sailor moon, etc) or was trying to sneak under the radar, but I'll forgive it because TFA also caused me to realize that Aquaman would actually be more powerful as a Manatee. And because he apparently realized the creepiness and drew the line at ponies.

I agree with you on the Wild West Batman, but I liked most of the others. Flash as a quickdraw and WW with a lasso were obvious maybe, but I thought they did really well with Wild West Supes there. The Green Lantern is interesting, but needs to be fleshed out, but John Stewart as a rail road man could be interesting.

Esc7:DjangoStonereaver: Jim_Callahan: DjangoStonereaver: The Fantasy Iron Man looks an awful lot like a Warforged from Eberron.

Yes, but you have inspiration and derivative work backwards, there, actually. Warforged art style was based on Iron Man/War Machine, if I'm remembering that interview correctly.

I didn't know that, but it makes sense.

/Loves Eberron.//Damn shame that WOTC gave it the big shaft.

wait, how did they get the shaft?

WOTC never released but one D&D 4E sourcebook for it, and last I heard they had stopped anysupport for the setting, either with game supplements or novels. Quite a big turnaround for a settingthat they had trumpted as the new 'default' setting for D&D when it was released.

Yes, but you have inspiration and derivative work backwards, there, actually. Warforged art style was based on Iron Man/War Machine, if I'm remembering that interview correctly.

I didn't know that, but it makes sense.

/Loves Eberron.//Damn shame that WOTC gave it the big shaft.

wait, how did they get the shaft?

WOTC never released but one D&D 4E sourcebook for it, and last I heard they had stopped anysupport for the setting, either with game supplements or novels. Quite a big turnaround for a settingthat they had trumpted as the new 'default' setting for D&D when it was released.

WOTC is a cruel mistress. But how many other campaign settings got more than one book? I guess Forgotten Realms STILL has all the love...which is inexplicable to me.

But now we get to start over with D&D NEXT. I bet there's going to be a brand new expensive Eberron source book to buy. (When really they should just keep doing Planescape, there's the urban magic setting that everyone likes)

Yes, but you have inspiration and derivative work backwards, there, actually. Warforged art style was based on Iron Man/War Machine, if I'm remembering that interview correctly.

I didn't know that, but it makes sense.

/Loves Eberron.//Damn shame that WOTC gave it the big shaft.

wait, how did they get the shaft?

WOTC never released but one D&D 4E sourcebook for it, and last I heard they had stopped anysupport for the setting, either with game supplements or novels. Quite a big turnaround for a settingthat they had trumpted as the new 'default' setting for D&D when it was released.

WOTC is a cruel mistress. But how many other campaign settings got more than one book? I guess Forgotten Realms STILL has all the love...which is inexplicable to me.

Amen. For me, FR represents everything that is wrong and hackneyed about D&D (which is a shamebecause Ed Greenwood is a great guy, but he is hardly to blame for the excesses committed uponhis creation), and their decision to junk every other setting in favor of it for D&D4E was a major factorin me washing my hands of the RPGA (I was an avid Living Greyhawk player for most of the life of thecampaign).

But now we get to start over with D&D NEXT. I bet there's going to be a brand new expensive Eberron source book to buy. (When really they should just keep doing Planescape, there's the urban magic setting that everyone likes)

While you are absolutely spot-on about WOTC wanting to sell books above all else (exceptminiatures, which have a higher profit margin), at least during the 3.xE era they dribbled out a varietyof settings (often in their late, lamented POLYHEDRON or DUNGEON magazines) that would helpslake the thirst of old-time devotees with some sort of upgrades to the then-current system. I admit Ihaven't been following their output in the 4E era, but I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere.

I am torn about D&D NEXT, really, since despite all their noises I can't see them doing anything with itother than keeping down the path of making it a tabletop skirmish game. But, I hope I am provedwrong on that count.

DjangoStonereaver:WOTC is a cruel mistress. But how many other campaign settings got more than one book? I guess Forgotten Realms STILL has all the love...which is inexplicable to me.

Amen. For me, FR represents everything that is wrong and hackneyed about D&D (which is a shamebecause Ed Greenwood is a great guy, but he is hardly to blame for the excesses committed uponhis creation), and their decision to junk every other setting in favor of it for D&D4E was a major factorin me washing my hands of the RPGA (I was an avid Living Greyhawk player for most of the life of thecampaign).

But now we get to start over with D&D NEXT. I bet there's going to be a brand new expensive Eberron source book to buy. (When really they should just keep doing Planescape, there's the urban magic setting that everyone likes)

While you are absolutely spot-on about WOTC wanting to sell books above all else (exceptminiatures, which have a higher profit margin), at least during the 3.xE era they dribbled out a varietyof settings (often in their late, lamented POLYHEDRON or DUNGEON magazines) that would helpslake the thirst of old-time devotees with some sort of upgrades to the then-current system. I admit Ihaven't been following their output in the 4E era, but I don't recall seeing anything like that anywhere.

I am torn about D&D NEXT, really, since despite all their noises I can't see them doing anything with itother than keeping down the path of making it a tabletop skirmish game. But, I hope I am provedwrong on that count.

WOTC is pivoting, just like they did with essentials, to stop their playerbase from hemmoraging to alternative products like Pathfinder. Turns out us nerds hate change and prefer things to be the same.

While 4E has the right to be called successful and increased the player base of D&D more than ever, the backlash amongst its long time fans was serious. Mostly for the reasons you outline the "gameification" and "tabletopness" of the system. Which is ironic, because D&D was spawned from Gygax's Chainmail, where they experimented with adding character progression to their tabletop wargames.

but don't fear! WOTC is defined by overreacting to fans whining and D&D Next explicitly states that all tabletop skirmish grid based battles will be optional. How that will work in with the various powers and abilities characters get, I'm not sure. But D&D Next will be a throwback edition in order to reassert their dominance over pen and paper RPGs.

An aside on Campaign Settings:Forgotten Realms is the worst form of genericized fantasy trash this side of the Drizzt Do'Urden. I simply can't stand it. The crazy thing is that Wizards already HAS an excellent worldbuilding team that cobbles together something every two years for their other product Magic the Gathering. Loads of concepts and seriously good art are thrown into that card game. I really think the profit engine for D&D doesn't have to be rule books, but just a high volume of awesome campaign settings. Gothic, steampunk, western, wushu, all these things are dying to be played.

Esc7:WOTC is pivoting, just like they did with essentials, to stop their playerbase from hemmoraging to alternative products like Pathfinder. Turns out us nerds hate change and prefer things to be the same.

While 4E has the right to be called successful and increased the player base of D&D more than ever, the backlash amongst its long time fans was serious. Mostly for the reasons you outline the "gameification" and "tabletopness" of the system. Which is ironic, because D&D was spawned from Gygax's Chainmail, where they experimented with adding character progression to their tabletop wargames.

but don't fear! WOTC is defined by overreacting to fans whining and D&D Next explicitly states that all tabletop skirmish grid based battles will be optional. How that will work in with the various powers and abilities characters get, I'm not sure. But D&D Next will be a throwback edition in order to reassert their dominance over pen and paper RPGs.

I hope that's the case, and it would be a welcome reverse to the trend that they started with 3.x toward anemphasis on miniatures combat. Sure, you could do combat without minis with 3.x/D20, but the system wasreally geared toward it, though not to the extent that 4E was. Don't get me wrong: I enjoyed the hell out ofplaying 3.x, but it was the first time in over 20 years of RPGs that I really felt the absolute need to use miniaturesfor combat, and that should have set off my spider sense a lot sooner than it did.

An aside on Campaign Settings:Forgotten Realms is the worst form of genericized fantasy trash this side of the Drizzt Do'Urden. I simply can't stand it. The crazy thing is that Wizards already HAS an excellent worldbuilding team that cobbles together something every two years for their other product Magic the Gathering. Loads of concepts and seriously good art are thrown into that card game. I really think the profit engine for D&D doesn't have to be rule books, but just a high volume of awesome campaign settings. Gothic, steampunk, western, wushu, all these things are dying to be played.

From what I remember from the discussions around the release of D&D3E, this was apparently not the case.The M:TG crew could get buy with the barest minimum of writing and background for their stuff, but with RPGadventures and campaigns (especially campaigns), you need a deep writing staff, as well as editors andplaytesters. That means a much longer lead time for the products and while that was fine in the old TSR andpre-Hasbro buy-out days, now that WOTC has to answer to the accountants for quarterly profits they found thatit was much more cost effective concentrate on selling the core rulesbooks and 'generic' supplements and tocede the making of campaign backgrounds (aside from company staples) to 3rd parties. That was, I think, thebiggest impetus for them developing the OGL concept in the first place. Obviously, with 4E they backed away fromthat concept and pared their official support to just FR (and, really, they have been backing away from D20/OGLsince 3.5 and would completely recind the OGL if they could at this point for all that it really reinvigorated thepen & paper RPG market) since they had a mature setting that allowed them to focus on selling sourcebooks andminiatures that could be churned out without having to waste any money on 'unproven' concepts.

I really need to start back on a regular RPG campaign. Probably CALL OF CTHULHU or TRAIL OF CTHULHU, ormaybe NIGHT'S BLACK AGENTS (the spy genre with vampires; I'm not usually a fan of vampires after the badtaste of VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE, but they really have done a good job of making vampires monsters and nottortured goth art school rejects).